Last Class and Doggies (Last Friday)

So Friday was an interesting day.

After my usual morning routine, I went to the bank to deposit my allowance, which my dad had given to me in cash for some reason. While I was there, I also got my Maybank2u account reactivated. Apparently if you don't log in every three months or so, they'll shut you down automatically.

When I was walking back to my motorcycle from the bank, I saw my cousin Daryl leaving McDonald's. I asked him what he was doing in Bangsar and he told me that he had been working here for the past year. Apparently he works in the building just across from Devi's. He saw my mum and my brother eating there a few months ago but they said nothing to me. Nobody tells me anything. But yeah, it was cool meeting him.

I went to the KPD for my last Bahasa Kebangsaan class. I was half an hour early so I reviewed all my material from the past three months. When Ms Belinda arrived we got our marks back for our Tugasan and reviewed what the most important things for the exam were going to be. At the end of the class we got our overall marks. The highest was 42.5 out of 50, the average was around 35 out of fifty, I got 33 out of 50, which meant that I needed to score 17/50 on my final to pass.

After that class was over, and it was only 4:30, so we had finished two hours early. That was nice. Some of my classmates were waiting for the bus, I asked them what their scores were. Roy and Lee Kening both scored 25, and two other people I asked were only 2.5 and 1.5 points under me.

When I was walking to my motorcycle to go home, I heard a commotion behind me. I saw these two German Shepherds bounding around the place scaring everyone with their friendliness. It was quite funny, so I followed them around. They had collars, so I checked them for tags, but they didn't have any. A guard came up to me and told me to get control of my dogs since they were causing trouble. I told him they weren't my dogs, but I took them away anyway.

I spent the next few hours trying to help them find their owner. I wrote about it already but I'll repost the whole thing here in case the link ever stops working and I still want to read about it.

"As I was leaving class today, a couple of Alsatians bounded out of the foliage and started being very friendly with people. Most people did not take kindly to this. I thought it was quite amusing to see people freak out over the dogs, so I followed them into a bus queue. After accidentally inspiring fear into the crowd of pedestrians, they moved on down the sidewalk. I took some pictures of them while waiting for their owner to show up.

Doggies!

Male doggie!

Top of female doggie! Also shoes!

It soon became apparent that the owner of the dogs wasn't going to show up, and they were lost. They had collars, though, so I decided to check them for tags. First, though, I offered them my hand to smell. They were very affectionate and didn't act at all aggressive, so I moved on to a side rub, and then I examined their collars. Neither of them had tags, which either meant that they were unregistered or they were registered but without tags because they had identification chips implanted in their shoulders. They were happy, healthy dogs, so I assumed the latter, but without a scanner the chips were useless.

A guard came over to me and told me to get my dogs out of the area because I was creating a situation. I told him they weren't my dogs, but I'd try to use them. I managed to herd them away from the crowd and back where they came. It wasn't hard, all I had to do was grab the lady-dog's collar and walk her over and her guy-friend would follow. It was obvious that they were in this together.

Once the dogs were away from the bus queue and the main road, I had to figure out what to do with them. I couldn't leave them and go home, since they would go right back to the bus queue and annoy all the Muslims, who can't touch them, and the women, who are generally just scared of large animals. I couldn't call the police since their policy for stray dogs was to destroy them (they have these poles with nooses on the end so they can kill the animals without having to touch them), I couldn't call my parents because they wouldn't want dogs in our car or our apartment and besides our cat would probably murder them, and I couldn't call the shelters because I didn't have any of their numbers.

I tried asking passers-by if they knew the dogs, but nobody had ever seen them around before. I asked them if they had the numbers of any shelters I could call, but they didn't. I could only hang on to one dog at a time, so occasionally one would run up to someone and start sniffing them. The more frightened people were, the more excited the dog got. Soon I was telling people not to run because that he'd just chase them. He just wanted to play, but the way people reacted you'd've thought he was Cujo or something. It was quite funny to watch, though.

I realized I needed some kind of leash, so I wandered around with the lady dog until I came across an abandoned chair with police tape around it. I unwrapped the tape and strung it through a loop in the lady dog's collar. Her friend ran ahead and she trotted after him and I got dragged along for a bit until the tape broke. I restrung the collar with twice as much tape, and after that it was unsnappable.

LARGE DOG DO NOT CROSS

Now that I had a leash I could tie her down and call my brother to ask for the SPCA's number. He looked it up and gave it to me and I tried calling it, but nobody was answering. An American lady walked by and asked me if the dogs were mine and I said they weren't. She asked me if I knew where an ATM was and I told her there was one just around the corner. I asked her if she knew the numbers of any shelters or anyone who could help, and she told me that she hadn't been in the country long and the only number she knew was for the American embassy. I told her they were German Shepherds so the embassy might not be very helpful. We talked for a while and then she left to get money and wished me good luck with the dogs' owner.

After she left I still had no idea of what to do. Meanwhile, the male dog went and took a big shit in the middle of the street.

He is happy because he has just made himself king of the road.

I settled tying some of the police tape leash to a sign and waiting for someone to show up who either knew the number of a shelter or who had a phone that could go online and find such a number. I had plenty of time to wait since my class had ended two hours early due to it being the last class of the semester so the final was tomorrow morning.

I met a few people while I was waiting. There was a lady who went into her office and got the number of a shelter from the internet, but nobody picked up. There was a guy who stopped and told me that the dogs had been around since his classes started in the morning. He tried to help me figure out what to do while his friend stood a safe distance away because of the largeness of the dogs and the smelliness of the poo. He told me that it was very much a bad idea to call the police. Knowing Malaysia, they'd either not so up at all, show up and ask for a bribe before helping, or show up and kill the dogs anyway since it's simpler to just strangle them than it is to scan them and be stuck with the job of returning them to their owners over the weekend. Anyway, after telling me what I shouldn't do, he left with his friend. After him came a Chinese guy, Max, who noted who "taming" the dogs were. He called a friend who used to volunteer with animals and asked if he knew someone who could help. Meanwhile, I called various vets to find out if they knew the numbers of any shelters, but they either weren't picking up or they were out of the office and unable to help. I then met these two ladies who worked at the college. They got along well with the dogs, and the dogs got along well with them.

Max came by and said his friend knew a guy, Ka Lim, who ran a pet shop and that guy was coming over to pick up the dogs until the shelters opened again. Ka Lim said that he would be here at around seven o'clock because traffic was insanely heavy. It was around then when I realized the reason nobody was answering their phones was because it was Friday, and everything closes early on Fridays because the Malays have to go to the mosque or something. Anyway, Max gave me Ka Lim's number and then left to do whatever he was doing before he stopped to help a stranger with some dogs.

The ladies from the college left to go buy some food for the dogs. I hung around for a bit until some people emerged from a nearby office building and wanted to know what was going on with the dogs. Among them were two ladies who were friends with each other and also lived nearby. One of them, Maha, said she might have seen those dogs before since there was a guy who would walk his pair of German Shepherds past her house every so often. The other lady had two dogs and was experienced with rescues, so we were in good hands. She sent one of the guys from the office to go get some proper leashes from her house. In the meanwhile, I explained the story so far to them and they said that they could take care of the dogs until Ka Lim arrived. I gave Maha his number. She called him and she was told that the traffic was too heavy and he wasn't coming. So now we had to figure out where the dogs were going to stay while their owner was being located.

The ladies from college got back with two cans of dog food. One of them cut her finger when she was popping open the can. Someone from the office took her in to take care of the wound. Meanwhile the leash guy showed up, and the dogs were happy with their newer, more high-end restraints. After a few cautionary whiffs, the dogs ate their meals and were satisfied. After a while the lady from college who hadn't cut her finger went off to look for the lady from college who had, and the lady from the office who wasn't Maha called a friend with five dogs and a big house to see if her house was big enough for seven dogs.

The lady with the cut finger emerged and told us that she had fainted, but fortunately there was a guy from the office with her. The lady who wasn't Maha told us that her friend had plenty of space and was coming over now to pick up the dogs, but wouldn't be here for a while due to traffic. She then asked someone (probably the leash guy) to go up to the office and get a camera so they could make some posters to put up around the area. After that the lady without the cut finger came back and was reunited with her slightly woozy friend.

The one on the right cut her finger and passed out and the one on the left got lost looking for her. They haven't even been teaching for two years but they're already well on their way to becoming quirky professors.

The camera was brought down and some nice pictures were taken. Maha went to the office to print out some posters.

Time passed. Small talk was made. The male dog took another large dump, this time right in front of a parked car.

Maha emerged with a stack of posters. The college ladies agreed to put some of them up around the area when they came in for work the next day. They then went off to find a clinic that wasn't closed for a tetanus jab in case the can was rusty or something.

The lady with five dogs arrived with a large SUV capable of carrying dogs. We got the dogs in the back, and then I went to the front to take one last picture of the dogs with my phone. I remembered taking it, but it wasn't on my phone when I was uploading the images to the internet, which is both spooky and unfortunate because now I do not have a picture to end this story with.

So tomorrow there will be posters up all over the place and eventually the owner (or one of his friends) is bound to see it. He'll call the number for one of the office ladies who will direct him to the lady with a big house and five dogs, and there will be a happy reunion.

It's almost an hour past midnight now so there are a lot of things I've omitted and I might have messed up the sequence of events, so if anything seems odd or inaccurate just mention it and I'll try to clarify tomorrow after I pass my final exam. Also there was a strange guy who wanted to take one of the dogs for his own despite the fact that they got very distressed when they were separated and he only had a motorcycle for transport. Remind me to tell you guys about that, too."

Anyway after the doggies were safe, I went to McDonald's to have dinner. The guy at the counter charged me non-discount prices for my meal even though it was discount time, but I wasn't too upset because they accidentally gave me a McChicken that I hadn't ordered. I gave it to Jan when I got home.

After that I spent a long time writing about the dogs online, and then I went to sleep late and I woke up only three hours later.

I had thought I was going to write the dog story all over again in a different way for my blog since my blog is for a different audience, but it looks like I'm too lazy for that. Also I spotted some errors there but I'm not going to fix them until someone complains, which I don't think is going to happen.

Oh yeah also I might be attending one of Carmeni's lectures on Wednesday, just for kicks.

Anyway I'd better end this now so I can get some sleep. I've got an aptitude test tomorrow.

Finished! Finally! Also, Doggies

I finished my Foundation in Science today. The test was pretty okay and I'm quite confident that I passed. Soon I'll finally be able to claim my certificate and start applying at different universities to get an engineering degree or something. You know what sucks? If I had failed a subject during my Foundation I would have finished sooner than now because I would have joined the new semester and done my Bahasa Kebangsaan then, and that semester finished about a month ago. It would have also meant that I could still hang out with Elo and Carmeni and that lot. Oh well, at least I saved my dad the cost of me resitting.

Yesterday was my last class, and it ended early. Two hours early, actually. I spent that time rescuing a pair of dogs that showed up as I was asking people what their overall score was (mine was 33/50, the highest was 42.5, the average seemed to be around 35). I will try to blog about the doggie rescue tomorrow, but I am tired tonight so here is a thread I started about it that you can read in the meanwhile.

I had a delicious breakfast this morning. I spent way more money than I should've on it, but our lecturer told us that we must eat before the test because hungry students can't focus, so I'll just consider it my last assignment. Easily the most delicious assignment I've ever had.

That's a hash brown sandwiched between two sausage patties sandwiched between two toasty McMuffin buns sitting on top of two soft, fluffy, delicious hotcakes. I also have two drinks to wash all that down. Oh yeah, there's also a another hash brown off to the side.
I finished everything and it was all good. I was still kinda hungry afterwards. Maybe I'll have a couple more extra hash browns next time.

I saw a poster for the dogs before my test. I took a picture of it; see if you can spot me in the background.



Hannah wanted to watch Shaun of the Dead today. I had told her that if she watched that movie I would buy a large packet of Lays, a bowl of M&Ms, and a bottle of coke to share with her and whichever friend she decided to watch it with. I was hoping she'd pick Ebony because Ebony is quiet so Hannah wouldn't be distracted so she could catch all the little jokes and repeated lines and such, but Hannah picked Audrey who is a louder person and therefore not as good to watch movies with, especially one as detail-heavy and layered as Shaun of the Dead.

Anyway aside from ending up with a more boisterous viewing partner than I had anticipated, there were other things that went wrong, too. There were no Lays to be found anywhere, or any decent-quality potato chips, for that matter. They had all been snatched up when "Balik Kampung" started. All the convenience stores and hypermarkets had bare shelves and it was very unnerving, like everyone had been stocking up for the apocalypse and now there was nothing left except the shittiest flavours that nobody wanted, like seaweed and curry. Also, we were interrupted halfway when some contractors came through to fix Hannah's air conditioner. We ended up moving to the living room. Also right at the bit when they were stuck in the cellar, Hannah skipped to the end accidentally and killed all the tension. Nice going. Anyway, it was still Shaun of the Dead so it was still awesome, I'm just disappointed that it wasn't as awesome as it could've been.

Before the movie Audrey had told me that all zombie movies were alike, and so after the movie I asked her which zombie films she'd seen. She said I Am Legend. In fact, that was the only movie she listed. I told her those were vampires, but she insisted I was wrong, as if there was some way I of all people wouldn't know the difference between a zombie and a vampire. I tried to explain to her how I Am Legend was actually a pretty terrible adaptation of the book because it had changed the monsters so much and the Hollywood ending they gave it basically pissed all over the legacy of the book, but she wouldn't let me. The Omega Man did a much better job of adapting the book. The only things I Am Legend got right was casting an excellent lead and getting a real good atmosphere for the city.

I'm pretty sure Audrey does not know how genres work. She thinks Hot Tub Time Machine was a porno. Firstly, nobody's said porno since the eighties, and secondly, there's nothing in there except tits. Tits were all over the place in the seventies. They were in, like, every movie. It was like some kind of unwritten law. They're still all over the place in Europe. God forbid Audrey ever visit a Dutch beach; she'd probably think she stumbled across a orgy, what with all the raw boobage on display and such.

Oh yeah I also learned that the only zombie movies Hannah has seen are Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. I'll have to show her the Dawn of the Dead remake and the original Night of the Living Dead, and maybe RotLD if she's up for it.

Anyway, I drove Audrey back home and picked up her sister along the way. She conceded in the car that I Am Legend was not a zombie movie. We still argued about other stuff, though. When Hannah and I were driving back, I got a text from Audrey saying that Hannah's phone was still at Audrey's house. We went back to get it and I told Hannah about yesterday and how I helped rescue the doggies. Audrey texted me and apologized for arguing. I told her there was nothing wrong with arguing and if anyone should be apologizing it was me for getting so upset with her for not paying enough attention to the movie. Then we came home and I took a nap from 8 until 10. When I woke up I saw that I got a text from Audrey asking if we were cool. I replied that we were. I hope she doesn't misinterpret the 2-hour delay as some sort of passive-aggressive thing. I don't do that kind of stuff, I just leave it to the experts (women).

Hm. This post was longer than I expected it to be. I wanted to go to bed early because I only got three hours of sleep yesterday. I still have to do my exercises and take a shower. Bleh.

My First Interview and Two Half Days

So the second half of Tuesday was quite okay. I hung out in Hannah's room for a while, and something weird was going on. Hannah was being nice to me. I wanted to see what would make her tell me to leave her room, so I asked her to do or let me do increasingly bizarre things. She even let me touch her laptop (she usually hates it when people touch her laptop). Also at one point I told her that I thought it was impossible to wear underclothes over normal clothes, but she proved me wrong and looked ridiculous while doing so. I should have taken a picture for blackmail, since she has a video of me dancing that is absolutely cringe-worthy. Anyway I stayed in her room until she had finished cleaning it up and it looked nice and tidy, then I left.

I had planned to go to bed early, but I ended up playing RuneScape and reading Cracked until a little after midnight, so I was only in bed by 12:45. Oh well.

The next day was Wednesday. I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 7:45am. I did my daily Bible reading and climbed the stairs. I still felt a bit sleepy, so I set my alarm for 8:40am and got ready for another quick nap. Before I did that, though, I read the newspaper and realized that Tuesday had been Merdeka Day. I hadn't realized. Oh well. Happy belated 53rd to Malaysia, I guess.

The nap was very brief but very, very helpful. When my alarm woke me up, I took a shower and freshened up by shaving and deodorizing teeth-brushing and such, and then I changed into some professional-looking clothes and I was ready to go. I grabbed my phone and my wallet and my transcript and my resume which I had printed the day before, and then I borrowed Ian's keys, put my stuff down to tie my shoes, and left.

It was only 9:15am so I had plenty of time before I was supposed to arrive at 10am. I decided to stop by a petrol station to get some petrol and mints for Ian's car. A little after making that decision I realized that I had left my résumé and transcript on the coffee table at home, so I had to turn around and get those.

By skipping the stop for fuel and mints, I managed to arrive at 1 Tech Park just a couple of minutes after 10am. I went to the second floor for the interview, but I found that access required a key card. I went upstairs to the third floor and I was told to sign in and go back downstairs and knock.

So I went back to the second floor and knocked. Sure enough, someone showed up to open the door for me. I asked if Jack was in, and I was told that he was. I introduced myself to him and told him I was there for the interview, so he showed me in to the interview room.

He asked me some questions and I tried to answer them. I didn't do too well, but fortunately for me Jack is a cool guy, so he told me what I had done wrong and how to interview better next time. He told me to avoid speaking too casually, he told me that I should go for a part-time position (I hadn't realized that there were differences aside from work hours between full-time and part-time), and he told me that I should always, always have a pen.

After that, he gave me a quick brief on what I would be doing if I got the job. The company I'd be working for is called Datacom. Basically, Datacom provides IT solutions. To quote their company mission, they are "Passionate people providing creative quality solutions." Recently, they'd also started running call centres (or contact centres, to quote their site). These call centres do work outsourced from other companies. The one I'd be working in would be doing work for Roy Morgan, which is this big research company. My job would be to make calls to New Zealand and ask random people to take a forty-question survey.

Once the brief was done, I was handed a bunch of forms to fill in. There was stuff about my education background and personal details and such like that, and there was also a place to fill in my answers to an English test which I was also given.

While I was filling the stuff in, someone else was being interviewed. He was even less prepared than me, though, so that made me feel a bit better. After a while, Jack left, which was unfortunate because I had a few questions about some of the stuff that I needed to fill in, and I didn't know who to ask.

I decided to fill in what I could and then take the test. The test was easy for three reasons. Firstly, relative to most applicants, my English is really good. That's probably due to all the books and articles on the internet I read, and also due to it being practically the only language I speak. Anyway, the second reason is that the test is relatively pretty easy, too. I'm pretty sure that my first semester English quizzes were more difficult. The final reason that the test didn't worry me was because despite clear instructions not to, someone had written their answers on the test paper. I know I could have passed even without the answers, though. Besides, the person who had written on the test kinda sucked at English (not surprising considering they failed to comprehend the basic instructions), so they got a few answers wrong. But yeah, unless I made a careless mistake somewhere, I'm pretty sure I got everything right.

After that I had a bit of a struggle coming up with who to use as a reference. I remembered working in a store that belonged to the son of the reverend at my church, but that was a long while ago. I gave the reverend a call, and he gave me his son's number. However, he failed to tell me his son, Eusoffe, was in Cambodia. After what was probably a very expensive phone call, I managed to get the number of the store and the guy who was currently running the store, Arthur. I called the store but nobody remembered me, which I had anticipate, so I called Arthur and was pleasantly surprised to find out that he still remembered me. He told me that he was currently driving and would call me when he reached his destination.

While I was waiting for Arthur to call me back, the lady who helped me out from my last visit (Shamini? I'm gonna go with Shamini for now and when I know for sure I might come back and fix these posts) passed by. She came in and answered my questions about the forms and helped me fill almost in everything that I was unsure of. She told me that since I was a student, I could use a lecturer as my reference instead of a previous boss. I thanked her for her help as she left, and then I called Mr Joel to ask if he was okay with me citing him as a reference. He was, so I had everything I needed to fill out the forms, or at least enough to show them to Jack.

I brought them to Jack and told him that I had filled in everything except the bit for previous and expected salary. He told me not to worry about it, so I didn't. He then told me that I'd have to take a typing test.

The test was pretty simple. Applicants would have two minutes to type out as much of a given text as they could, and then their speed, in words per minute (WPM), would be calculated. The goal was to get at least 30 WPM. Jack told me to take as many tries as I needed and to call him when I got at least 30 WPM. Elo had posted in her blog that when she went to interview, the standard was 25 WPM and Arun (and maybe Milan, too) had to have multiple tries before he finally got the required speed. I got 70 WPM and 100% accuracy on my second try. I would have passed on my first try, too, but I made some mistakes half a minute in which would have landed me with 62 WPM or something, so I just cancelled and started over. Anyway I guess that's why those guys have girlfriends and all I've got is a blog.

I went to tell Jack, but he was busy, so I went back into the room. I considered retaking the test and trying to beat my score, but I decided against it since 70 is a nice number and I didn't want Jack walking in while I was in the middle of a test. Instead, I texted Arthur and told him that I had already found a reference, but thanks anyway. He had tried to call me ten minutes earlier, but I hadn't noticed because my phone was on silent mode because my ringtone is not very professional at all. It's a mash-up of California Gurls and Tik Tok with the timing altered so the song has a swing beat. So... Yeah.

After a while, Jack came in to check my score. He asked me why it was so fast. I think he may have thought that I had cheated or that there was some kind of computer error. Anyway, I just told him that it was because I got a lot of practice.

Jack told me that everything seemed good so far, so they would be calling me back for an aptitude test. I asked him what that was and he told me that it was basically another interview, but with other applicants and role-playing and stuff to see how well we'd react in the type of situations we were likely to face. He said that since there were almost enough applicants, it might be possible to have the aptitude test right that day, so I had a seat while he went to check.

It was a comfy seat, and the room it was in was nice. I wish more of my waits were in places that nice and comfy. I didn't mind that wait at all.

Jack returned with my transcript and told me that the aptitude test couldn't be held that day, but he would call me and tell me when it was. He told me to bring a photocopy of my transcript and my IC next time. I thanked him for the interview and left. The whole thing had taken around an hour and half.

As I was pulling out of the parking spot, I got a call from a withheld number. It was Jack, and he was calling to tell me that the aptitude test would be on Monday and they expected me at 10:15am.

I drove over to Pusat Bandar Damansara to get my stuff photocopied at WN and also to get a tasty lunch. Along the way I texted Elo to thank her for her help getting me the job. When I reached PBD, the traffic was terrible and there was nowhere to park, legal or otherwise. I gave Jan a call and asked him if he wanted to join me for Subway. He did, so I told him to be downstairs in ten minutes.

After collecting Jan, I told him the plan: we'd find somewhere illegal to park, then he would wait in the car while I got my transcript and IC photocopied, then he'd order Subway which we could eat in the car. There were no parking spaces to be found, though, so we ended up parking at HELP and walking to where we needed to be. Before we left the car park I realized I had left my transcript in the car, so I went back for it for the second time that day.

As we were walking through HELP, I met Tanuj. He had been in Calculus with me during my first semester. I asked him how he was and what he was doing. He told me he was working on the second year of his psychology degree. I told him that I had just finished an interview. We wished each other well and went about our day.

I took Jan through HELP's corridor and told him stuff about the college. He told me he couldn't wait to go to college himself. He also told me he thought that people were looking at him because he was so unusually handsome. He's quite vain, but judging from his recent success with girls, he probably had the right to be.

Anyway, we went to WN and I got my stuff photocopied. I also bought a pen, since you should never be without a pen in the professional world.

After WN we went to Subway and I had probably my best sandwich ever. It had plenty of meat, its bread was liberally doused in olive oil before toasting so it ended up being golden-brown and crunchy, it had so many onions and enough olives to be delicious, and the black pepper went on the meat and not the vegetables (you would be surprised how many times I've had people put pepper on my vegetables). Its only flaw was that it wasn't a footlong. I guess I'll save that for when I pass the aptitude test.

When I had finished eating my sandwich, I glanced over at my photocopied IC and remembered that my new IC should be done by now. I checked my wallet for the receipt that I had gotten from the JPN, but I got distracted by the fact that my IC was missing. I realized I must've left it at WN, so Jan and I went over to get it back. Fortunately it was in the care of the lady there and not her perpetually-grumpy partner, so we were okay.

When we were walking back into HELP I noticed that the entrance to the level that lay between HELP and the street was open. Jan and I went in to explore. It was a long corridor of abandoned shops that had been closed for a long while. It was dim and creepy but at least it explained where all of the college's cockroaches and the occasional rat came from. I had thought we could exit from the fire door at the other end, but all the exits were locked and barricaded. I wondered whether it was because they were trying to keep something out or keep something in and which would be scarier, but then I realized that we don't live in a horror movie so I stopped caring.

We left the way we came in and walked back into college. The first person we saw when we got back down was Nadiah. She had gone with Effie and me to MTV World Stage last year. I had driven her back home afterwards, actually. Anyway, we said hi and asked each other what we were doing with our lives. She was taking a break for a while. She asked if Jan was my brother, and I said yes, and she said that he was so cute. And also small. Jan was haunted by those comments for the rest of the day, trying to figure out what they meant.

I also met Sam from my Physics classes. He was playing Fallout 3 with all sorts of mods and add-ons. He told me that he was currently doing his degree in Psychology, but in-game he had just started an evil character and was killing raiders in the metro. Nearby, Shaun Joel was playing Just Cause 2. I felt like watching that game, but I don't know the guy well enough to justify watching his laptop instead of Sam's. Besides, his name freaked Jan out.

As I left I was greeted by someone I recognized. He was one of the more well-known guys of the January intake, and he may or may not have won best dressed at the annual ball. He also knew my name. I didn't know his, though, so I just said hey and walked away with Jan.

I drove back and went on my computer for a bit, then I hung out in Hannah's room as I read through all my Bahasa Kebangsaan material. I then decided that I wanted to sleep early, so I told Hannah I wouldn't be making a blog post that day.

I went to my room and watched a program on the History Channel about the Al-Ma'unah arms heist. I did my exercises during the commercial breaks. It was a pretty damn interesting documentary and I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it earlier, especially since it happened in Malaysia only ten years ago.

Anyway, after that I took a shower and I was in bed by 10:45. I woke up almost twelve hours later and I haven't really done anything all day except write this blog post. I'm supposed to do my hardcore studying of Bahasa Kebangsaan today since my final exam is on Saturday, so I guess I'll do that sometime after this.

Short, Boring, Good

Today I didn't leave the house. I just stayed indoors, printed my résumé, ate some pancakes, started studying for my Bahasa Kebangsaan, and read stuff online. I'm writing this post early because I don't think anything interesting will happen in the evening, so I might as well get today's blog entry out of the way so that I'll have one less thing to do before my early bedtime (sometime between ten and twelve, hopefully).

I woke up at eleven so I got around nine hours of sleep. I wanted nine hours because yesterday I got eight hours and I still had to take a nap. I thought the extra hour would mean I wouldn't want to nap, but I still have the napping urge so I slept in for nothing, and now I'll have to figure out some way to kill the urge to nap or else I won't be tired enough for an early bedtime. I need to sleep early because I plan on waking up early so I can show up at 1 Tech Park for a walk-in interview and typing test and such.

Anyway, after I post this I'm going to do my exercises, and then I might re-install C&C Generals: Zero Hour or watch a movie or even play RuneScape if the internet connection holds out (it's been quite good today). That should keep me from falling asleep prematurely.

So yeah, nothing much to write about today, and it's actually quite nice.

Productive Day

So. Monday.

I woke up at ten-ish, got ready for the day, did a hundred sit-ups because I had forgotten to do them last night (I had remembered the push-ups, though, so I didn't have to do those). Took a shower, put on some nice clothes, went out with Hannah for McDonald's breakfast.

I parked in almost the shittiest way that it was possible to park while still allowing for traffic to continue flowing past. Hannah sprinted out to get to the counter before 11am rolled around and the lunch menu began. I didn't repark the car. This was a mistake.

The menus had been spun over even though it was technically 10:58am and thus still breakfast time. Anyway, we couldn't see what we were ordering so we screwed up our order. I paid for everything and Hannah took two ringgits off of me. She said that she had given me RM10 and wanted change, but I told her she hadn't. She kept arguing and insisting that I was lying until I finally convinced her to check her wallet and sure enough, there was the RM10 she hadn't given me for her meal. She's a weird kid.

Our food took a while to prepare. There were only two hash browns because we had fucked up the order. Ian and Jan showed up a while later. Jan ate from the lunch menu and Ian had two half-cups of hot milo and two sausage McMuffins with egg. Ideally we would have had a different order, but it's late and you don't care what we would have ordered so I'm not going to bother explaining it so I can go to bed sooner.

After breakfast we went back to our cars. The one Hannah and I were using had a summons on it for RM100 for parking illegally. None of the other cars parked around had one. I was pissed off.

When we arrived home, I called my dad and told him about the summons. He told me not to worry about it since it was from DBKL so he could get it settled for just RM10. He told me to be downstairs in ten minutes.

Hannah was kind enough to let me use her laptop to take my CC turns. She said I was so lame and nerdy but it was worth it; I've almost won one of them. Victory feels good. Anyway, I was in the lift right when my dad wanted me to be downstairs, but some guys were moving stuff down a floor and so I got a bit held up.

I met my dad downstairs and we drove to pick up lunch for him, then we went to 1 Tech Park for my walk-in interview. I gave Elo a call to ask which floor I was supposed to go to. She told me that it was the third, so I went to the third. A little later she texted me and told me that it was the second, but I had found someone on the third who could help anyway, so that was nice. Unfortunately I arrived right when everyone was having lunch. The lady I met (Shamini?) told me about the job and that I should come back on Wednesday with a proper résumé for the interview. She also told me that there would be a typing test and an English test, but I got HDs for both English subjects and I just scored 66 WPM (They want at least 25) on this test I found earlier, so I think I'll be fine.

After the interview we went to the Citibank near-ish to Ikea so my dad could pick up some cash, then we drove into the city to find the traffic police headquarters to pay for my first summons. It was non-negotiable, but I could pay with my ATM card, so that was convenient. After I paid, my dad reimbursed me for most of the fine, which I didn't think was fair but it is impolite to refuse a gift, so I accepted.

When we got home I had Hannah take some pictures of me so I could use one in my résumé, then I lazed about the house for a while, and then we left again so my dad could go to a meeting at four o'clock. I got Hannah to come along for company by promising her some chicken tenders from Burger King. While waiting for the lift I asked her if she had her wallet or her phone, and she said that she didn't because her phone wasn't charged. I told her to just run over and plug it in quickly for a few seconds so there would be enough juice for the short trip, but she didn't want to. Silly girl.

After we dropped my dad off for his meeting, I let Hannah buy the chicken tenders. I gave her RM10 and told her to get as much of the stuff as she could with the cash she had. I drove a few rounds without seeing her. She should have brought her phone, that way I could have called her and known where she was and known that she knew where Burger King was. Anyway, she got the tenders and gave me the change, which was only two ringgits. I couldn't believe that Burger King would charge so much for just six pieces of chicken, so I sent Hannah out to get the receipt. It really was RM7. You can get a meal for RM9. I asked Hannah why she didn't and she said she wasn't sure. She should have brought her phone, then she could've asked and we would have had fries and a drink, too. Silly girl.

After eating, we waited around for my dad and played the Platypus game. Hannah was being quite unimaginative so she got me to ask all the questions, but everything I could come up with was awkward and inappropriate. Anyway, I told her that I wouldn't reveal anything she said to anyone else or else she could slap me anywhere, any time, so I won't say anything here. It's not like I found out anything interesting anyway.

When we got back home, I hung out in Hannah's room for a while. She had promised to upload the pictures she had taken to Facebook at nine so I could get my résumé ready while my dad was still awake to help me, but she only got the pictures up at ten and the internet died shortly after that, so my dad said I could make the résumé tomorrow. I wanted to set aside tomorrow as the day when I started studying for my Bahasa Kebangsaan final, which is on Saturday, but now I guess I'll have to do that and my résumé. Oh well.

We had tasty fluffy pancakes for dinner, so that was nice. I had five of them or something, and each one was delicious. I also did my exercises quite early which means I can head straight for the shower after I'm done with this. Yay!

Huh, the connection died right when I tried to post this and all my tags were lost. Bad things seem to be happening to me with perfect timing lately. Oh well, at least I still had delicious pancakes.

Tugasan

Today I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 8:15, but by then it was too late to do what I wanted to do so I turned it off and went back to sleep. It had gone off six times and I had slept through the first five. I think it's time to retire "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" as my alarm. Back to "I Feel Fantastic", I guess.

I woke up for real at eleven. I did my daily Bible reading, climbed the stairs, communicated with some people on Facebook, and took a shower. I left for class early so that I could study for my Tugasan.

I arrived at two o'clock and tasked myself with memorizing a bunch of words. Once that was done, I read some more Adrian Mole. He's 24 now and a real twat. I've pretty much lost sympathy for the guy. Still it's a funny, well-written book, but now I see that maybe Jared was insulting me when he said I reminded him of Mole.

Anyway, class started and we learned some stuff, then we had a break and we did our Tugasan. I was hoping for a 7/10 but I think I'll end up with a 6.5.

There was a huge jam along the way back. Turns out the traffic lights in the junction outside Bangsar Shopping Centre weren't working. There weren't any traffic cops when I got there either. I didn't want to risk crossing through the traffic alone, so I followed behind another car that moved in for the turn when a bunch of pedestrians started crossing and forced the cars on the other side to slow down. I hope they get those lights fixed soon.

When I got home, Aunty Rosie was cooking fish and chips. Dinner was delicious. I love it when Aunty Rosie cooks Western food.

I told Hannah I'd watch 10 Things I Hate About You if she watched the trailers for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. She did, so I did. 10 Things I Hate About You is a great movie. I would list the actors' names and the other movies they've been in and how all the movies I've been watching lately seem to be connected, but that's going to get old after a while. Whatever. It had Juno's stepmother, Arthur, and The Joker in it. Also I recognized the dad from somewhere but I can't remember where. Also the soundtrack was fantastic. Great movie.

Tomorrow is Ian and Jan's Awards Day. I'm glad I'm not in BB any more. So much responsibilities avoided. It's just work and stress and wasted time for no reward, anyway.

Movies (Also Some of Last Week)

I watched The Expendables today with Ian, Jan, and El-Hanan. It was awesome. Jan and Hanan thought the dialogue was really shitty, but I thought it was good enough for the type of movie that it was. The action and explosions and gore and one-liners were so great. I haven't had that much fun in a movie in a while.

I also had a lot of fun when I went to see Salt with Joanna on Wednesday. It was a lot smarter and a little more fun than I thought it was going to be. I was pleased that it surprised me. This is the benefit of having low expectations. The only bad bit was that a couple walked into the movie an hour and a half in, right during the twist at the climax in the war room. Who comes in to a movie fifteen minutes before it ends? Fools. Also the movie was very blue and orange, and now that I've started noticing that trend I cannot un-notice it. Oh yeah, we also saw the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World and now I want to watch it even though it'll be coming out many months after the American release and they're probably going to censor out the ex-girlfriend character.

Before I watched Salt with Joanna I bought her phone for RM250. My dad paid for RM150 of it. It is an awesome phone. It can store an unlimited amount of texts, which is the main reason I got it (My old one only held 100 texts for some arbitrary reason), but it also has a music player and a working camera and 2 gigabytes of space which I have almost filled with music and funny pictures.

After I watched Salt, I met up with Elo and Arun in McDonald's to give Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and an episode of Batman: The Bold and the Brave to Elo. She didn't have her laptop, so she borrowed the pen drive and gave it back to me the next day. Also I discovered that Elo has the same phone as me, which is pretty cool since Arun has one like my old one. Anyway, when I went to pick the pen drive up the next day, I saw a motorcycle that was the same model as mine. It looked cooler, though. I took pictures with my new phone.

While on the subject of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, apparently Ian brought the pen drive to some singing practice for BB and they watched the first two acts there. Something interrupted them and then they had to go home and now they will never finish it. Poor BB people.

Also during this week I got Marks and Spencer's underwear and socks. My dad took us to The Gardens to get clothes. I spent most of our time there coming up with CSI Miami-esque puns. Also before that we ate at McDonald's breakfast and that was delicious. Anyway the socks are super comfortable and the underwear will last a long time, so that's nice.

I downloaded a whole bunch of movies, maybe fifteen gigs' worth. Most of them are Disney. Aladdin is my new favourite. Jafaar is a great villain, but still like Scar more. Also The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh are funny and nostalgic and awesome. Also piglet is in 12 Angry Men. But yeah, I got a lot of movies.

I found out that I can't access my college results on MyPride until my resource fee is dealt with. I'm going to fix it with my dad tomorrow, hopefully.

Hm. Oh yeah, I showed Hannah some Twilight Zone episodes and now she is a fan. Also she is even more in love with Joseph Gordon-Levitt after discovering hitRECord. Good for her.

I have more to say, but I can't remember what, so I'll end now. Going to bed soon, yay.

Edit: Oh yeah did I also mention that I talked to Juria a few days ago and when I brought up my broken promise she said that it was all in the past and she forgave me? Well that happened, and I feel so much better now. There is at least 80% less guilt in my life now. Also she's started writing short stories again, so go check out her blog in the sidebar because she's got talent.

Also I had my Ujian Lisan on Saturday and I think I did pretty okay. I went second, gave my speech which I had written up the night before (Probably the latest I've ever completed an assignment) stumbled a bit but covered all the points, and my only slip into English was when I started a few paragraphs with "So...". Also I got to talking to my classmate and I gave her a back massage and told her about my family and stuff, and after class I wanted to see if she wanted to go for McDonald's or something (I didn't have much money but I wouldn't mind being poorer if it meant I could go on a sorta-date). I asked her if she had a boyfriend, and she said yes, and I said I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised because she was pretty and smart and of course someone would want to make her his girlfriend, but I was also not surprised because she was pretty and smart and of course she would have a boyfriend because life kinda sucks sometimes and any girl like that is bound to be unavailable. Meh.

Quite Funny in a Boring Way

Friday. Let's see, I woke up to my alarm at 11am and went about my usual morning routine (which includes a shower now). For breakfast (or lunch, it was almost noon), we had pancakes. I ate two. They were delicious.

Ruben was going with his dad to see Inception. Jan was tagging along, I think. I was going to college. I'm kinda disappointed that I didn't get to watch Inception a sixth time.

It started raining, so I went on the computer while I waiting for the weather to return to drivable conditions. I had some bookmarks left over from last night. I read a discussion about whether legalized abortion had caused a drop in crime. Apparently it had, but not by as much as was originally supposed.

When the time came to leave, I left. When I reached the KPD I couldn't find the kitten, so I just went to class and started reading. I'm almost done with the Mole diaries. He's 20 now. Adrian Mole is very knowledgeable, but he's still quite stupid. I can see why I remind Jared of him.

Class started and we were handed our second quizzes back. I got 9.5 out of 10. I was not expecting 9.5 out of 10. It was a very pleasant surprise. Only one person in class scored full marks. Ms Belinda said that I lost my half mark over a careless mistake. I think that I gained a couple marks due to clever guessing.

During the break I found the kitten, and I also found the girls who were feeding him and his mother. I didn't speak to them, though. I managed to get really close to the kitten, but he didn't let me stroke him this time. Oh well, his loss.

After the break we handed in our assignments. The moment I put mine down, Ms Belinda started going through it and circling mistakes. I couldn't bear to look so I went back to my seat and waited for class to resume. The class ended late because we had to do some exercises on the board. The building's air-conditioning had been shut off for almost half an hour by the time we left.

When I got back home I found out that Ruben had thought Inception was only okay. He's the first person aside from my dad not to think the movie was awesome. I also found out that Ruben and Stefanie were leaving early to stay at their house, and they taking Hannah for a while, too. Apparently there was nothing left to do at our place. They were wrong, I hadn't even taken them up to the roof yet. Oh well, their loss.

I watched District 9 and ate a huge bowl of fresh carbonara. It was super-delicious at first, but it was merely yummy as I was finishing it. A loss in quality is to be expected when you consume a bowl of pasta in an air-conditioned room over the course of an hour, though.

A little later on I was chatting with some people on Windows Live Messenger when I noticed Juria sign in. I asked her if she had been to MTV World Stage, and we got talking from there. After a while I told her that I was still sorry for breaking a promise I had made to her in my second semester, which was my first apology to her since the day she confronted me about it. She said that it was all in the past and she had forgiven me, and I felt a lot better. We talked for a bit more about college and Jason Mraz and stuff, but then my internet connection started acting up so I couldn't chat any more.

I watched some TV with Jan and did my exercises, and then I took a shower and now I'm writing about a rather short day. Oh yeah, apparently the electric razor was Ian's, not Ruben's. Also, Ebony texted me to tell me that she read my blog sometimes and she thinks that it is "quite funny in a boring way", hence the title.

Movies, Motorcycles, and a Fair Bit of Climbing

So I didn't do my assignment today. I'll do it tomorrow. I had other, more awesome things to do today.

I was just starting to dream of Inception when my alarm started ringing. I woke up, and it was nine o'clock. I got up and got ready for the day. Before I climbed the stairs I figured I should give this whole two-showers-a-day thing everyone's been bugging me about a go, so I decided to take a quick cold shower after my exercise. Well, it was nice. I felt all fresh and energetic. I might do it more often.

Anyway, I got dressed and decided that since I was already so nice and fresh from the shower I might as well gargle some mouthwash and have my breath be nice and fresh, too. While I was in my dad's bathroom to borrow the mouthwash, I noticed an edition of Scientific American on the counter. The cover informed me about 12 events that would change the world, but not in the way I thought. A blurb from a different article asked me "IS TIME REAL?". I decided to bring it along to read in college partially because it would make me look smarter, but mostly because I wanted to know if TIME WAS REAL. There was also stuff about nuclear wars and human cloning and self-aware machines, so that was nice, too.

After grabbing my sunglasses and the copy of The Runaways that Hannah burned for Carmeni, I went downstairs to my motorcycle and squeezed it out of the clutter of motorcycles surrounding it. I only realized that that process had bent one of the mirrors to an unusable angle, but I fixed it on the road and made it to college without dying.

At college I sat down next to Nirai, opened up my Scientific American, and tried to look intelligent. Carmeni's class was finished early because it was a quiz day, so I handed her the disc and we talked for a bit while she waited for Nicholas and I tried to figure out if TIME WAS REAL.

Eventually Carmeni got bored of sitting around in the corridor, so I walked with her down to the lower foyer to sit around there. Amanda and Kaminie were chatting down there, and right after saying hi, Amanda asked if I wanted to see a movie. That was the precise moment when I decided my Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment could wait until tomorrow.

Amanda said that she'd drop some people off first and meet me in Mid Valley, and I said that was cool. While we were walking to our vehicles, she pointed out that my sunglasses looked like a policewoman's aviators because "policemen have squarer ones". If we were being honest I'd say that my feelings were a wee bit hurt, but this here is my post on my blog, so instead I'll say that I replied with a devastating comeback and everyone laughed, even those who were out of earshot.

On my way out of the college, I pulled up alongside Amanda's Kancil. She told me that riding a motorcycle looked so cool and she wanted to try it. That was probably the first time someone has looked at my motorcycle and not called it "cute". After I left the college I remembered that I didn't know where to park motorcycles in Mid Valley, and also that I am scared of being on big roads on my small bike, so I drove home and got Ian to drop me off. He was reluctant, but he did it, so that was nice.

Amanda, Kaminie, and I all arrived outside GSC at the same time. I told Amanda that the next Inception showing was at two o'clock, and she said she was fine with that, which I was not expecting since it was only a little past noon. Still, I was elated that we weren't watching Eclipse even though it had the earlier screening.

After we got in line, Amanda asked me if I could go to her birthday on the 31st, and I told her that was the same day as MTV World Stage, and she told me that I could just come after that was over, so that was great. I asked her if what she said earlier about not needing to bring presents was true or some sort of girl-code for "There's no need to bring presents as long as you want to be HATED AND SHUNNED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE OF COURSE YOU MUST BRING PRESENTS IT IS A BIRTHDAY YOU HEARTLESS MORON" (Thanks to Hannah and Audrey for that girl secret), and she told me that nope, it really meant there was no need to bring presents, but if I'm going to bring a present then it should be a book.

When we were in line, something completely pointless happened. Kaminie was meeting up with someone, so at first she wasn't going to watch the movie with us. At some point she decided that she would come watch the movie with us, so when we got to the counter we asked for four tickets instead of two. However, when Kaminie saw that the only available seats were just one row from the screen, she decided that she didn't want to watch, so we were right back to where we began. On the plus side, the tickets were only RM14, so that was nice. I love Wednesdays!

I ordered some McDonald's while the girls went to the toilet. While I was waiting I stacked up my nuggets and poured the fries out around them. It was quite a tasteful arrangement. The girls arrived, we shared some food, and Kaminie got a call from her friend and went to meet him in the other McDonald's all the way down on the other side of the mall. She also made him promise not to hug her. I'm not sure if I even want to try to figure out what that was all about.

Amanda and I ate and talked about dancing and learning skills and our dream proposals and our dream weddings. Amanda's dream proposal was either something super public or super personal, so if her boyfriend likes it and wants to put a ring on it, then he's either going to have to get down on one knee in the middle of a crowded hotel lobby or something, or else he's going to have to decorate the room with ridiculous amounts of flowers and enough scented candles to burn down a city before she says yes. Good luck to that guy. I said I'd propose to my girlfriend by taking her for a walk on the beach as the sun sets before pointing out a bottle on the shore, which she would then open, which would reveal my proposal speech, and when she turns around I'd be down on one knee with a ring out asking if she'd marry me. This earned me an "Awww" from Amanda.

After discussing her and my perfect weddings (fashion show reception and skydiving VIPs, respectively), we went to MPH to spend our remaining fifteen minutes before the show started. I read a bit more of Murphy's Law, but I had to stop mid-chapter because the trailers were starting soon and we had to get upstairs. Before the movie we needed to pee (It is two and a half hours long, after all), but our screen wasn't open yet so instead of using the clean movie theatre toilets we had to use the less clean shopping mall toilets. Along the way back from the toilets Amanda mentioned how thirsty she was and produced a bottle of cough syrup from her bag which led to a discussion about how great cough syrup tastes (really great) and what the best cure for a sore throat is (two Strepsils Honey & Lemon lozenges. It has to be Honey & Lemon. I don't know why).

When we got back, the screen was open, which meant that if I had stayed a little longer in MPH and finished my chapter, then we would have arrived just in time to use the nice movie toilets right after the screen opened. Oh well, at least now I know what to change if I ever go time-travelling (After killing Hitler and acquiring the AIDS vaccine from the future, of course).

Anyway, Inception was awesome for the third time. I understood even more than the last two times (though I still have questions), and there weren't any laughing idiots beside me. The girl to my right kept getting calls, though, and Amanda was texting through some of the important parts, but she claims that wasn't a problem ("I could still HEAR").

After Inception Amanda bought an ice cream from McDonald's, and she ate it as I drove her car down the parking garage, which seemed to be a lot higher up than it was. It was the first time I was in that parking garage in a long time. Nowadays I usually park under the mall instead of alongside it.

Anyway, when we were driving back I asked Amanda if she still wanted to drive my motorcycle, and she said yes, so we went to Sri Wangsaria, parked in a spot that someone claims is theirs but never uses, and went down to my bike. Amanda's first concern was that the helmet would mess up her hair, but she got over that quickly enough. She managed to kick-start the motorcycle quite impressively, but she was unable to replicate her success later on. I told her to put the bike in fourth gear so there'd be very little acceleration and thus very little chance of a repeat of the time Jan fell over on the bike and then drove it under a parked car.

We spent the first few minutes practising how to stop the bike properly. Once Amanda realized that she should never, ever take her right foot off the bike when she was moving and never, ever move until both feet were off the ground, things got a lot easier. After that I could teach her how to balance the bike when it was stationary (left foot on the ground as far from the bike as you can manage) and when it was moving (either speed up or stop completely, but whatever you do don't wiggle the handlebars). When she had mastered that she drove from one end of the parking garage to the other with only stabilizing help from behind, so I could show her how to turn off the motorcycle. She picked up on how to do that after just one time. When we were done with the motorcycle, Amanda told me that she never realized how hard it was to ride a motorcycle and promised that she would never insult a rempit again.

I parked my bike back in its place and showed Amanda the difference between my semi-automatic and my dad's automatic, and then I invited her upstairs for some water and perhaps a chance to see the roof again. When we arrived on the 20th floor, I introduced her to my aunt, grandaunt, and grandmother, who were staying at my house for some reason. While Amanda was having some water in the kitchen, my grandmother asked if Amanda was my girlfriend. I replied that she was just a friend from college. My aunt pointed out that my face was still flushed from holding up the motorcycle earlier, except I don't think she assumed that that was what we were doing. I forget if I told her that we were tired and sweaty when we arrived because motorcycles are heavy and require a real effort to move slowly in fourth gear and that is why we looked the way we looked, but I sure hope I did.

I went in the kitchen to get some water and eat some lychees with Amanda. I found a pair of lychees that had been fused together, and I thought they looked pretty funny. Amanda said they reminded her of dog balls. Not a very subtle way of putting it, but that was what I saw, too, so whatever. After that I went to my room to see if we could use the TV to karaoke or play the Wii or something, but Jan had just started a Grand Prix in Mario Kart so I decided to head up to the roof instead.

Unfortunately, the door we had used to get up on the roof for New Year's Eve was locked, and the one that lead to the area above our balcony was locked, too. I was now also too big too squeeze between the stairs and out on the roof like I used to ages ago. Plus the stairs were covered with pigeon shit, so ew.

Instead, I climbed a ladder up to an unlocked hatch that led to a place that I'd never been to before. Amanda followed behind me. It turned out to be a huge water storage unit inside one of Sri Wangsaria's "horns". There was also a ladder that led up another few storeys, so I decided to check that out.

When I was almost at the top, I turned back to see how Amanda was doing, and I froze in place for a while. It was high up there. Really, really high. I finally now knew what was meant when people said "Don't look down". In the end I decided to keep climbing since I was only a few rungs from the end anyway, and I wanted to know what was up there.

It turns out that nothing was up there. Nothing but a ledge and a sheer drop. It was a ladder to nowhere. I threw an apple I had been munching off the edge and watched as it steadily accelerated downwards for a dozen seconds or so before exploding in a truly spectacular fashion. The view from the back side of the building was pretty awesome, too.

I climbed down to Amanda and told her that I could see her house from up there, but if she wanted to climb the ladder then for safety's sake there was something she had to do. I told her that once she made it around a third up the ladder, around the point where the frontwards view could be seen above the water storage unit, that she had to turn and look down and see if she wanted to climb any higher. That way if she could handle it she could keep going, and if she couldn't, then she was much closer to the floor for the climb back down. Amanda agreed, and when she got to the point where she turned around she decided not to go any further. The frontwards view was more than enough anyway.

After that we tried exploring around the water storage unit, but there was nothing to see, so we just climbed back down the hatch. I did have a little trouble closing the hatch, but eventually I settled for slowly lowering it on my head then ducking down a few rungs so it shut quietly. Hatches are heavy, and I think I may have just discovered the cause of the headache I developed while writing this.

Anyway, we got back inside the apartment, Amanda had to leave to go pick up her sister, Jan and Hannah said I was all grimy and that they could smell me from the couch, I took another shower, and I got on my computer and proceeded to not do the thing I had told myself I was going to do today since Friday: My Bahasa Kebangsaan assignment. Deep down inside I had probably anticipated that I would end up procrastinating, which is why I told myself I would do it on Wednesday so that I would still have all Thursday to do it.

Once again, the post about Ian's birthday will have to wait. Maybe I'll do it next Wednesday.

=D

Copping Out with a List Post

So here's what happened:

- Lost is finished. I've been following it for six years and now it's over. I am both sad and happy. I enjoyed the finale.
- I'm in college for one last semester doing only one subject: Bahasa Kebangsaan. I was supposed to do Java Programming, too, but there was a scheduling clash. I was still being billed the resource fee for Java, but I got that sorted out.
- Bahasa Kebangsaan has been pretty easy so far. It's every Friday for three hours, so it's a bit long. On the plus side, I managed to get in the group with the prettiest girls for my assignments.
- I never actually went for karaoke. There were too many postponements and nobody could make it, so it was cancelled.
- I watched Toy Story 3 recently with Hannah. It was really, really good. One of Pixar's best, and that's saying something. I missed the end because I had drank three cokes and I really needed to go, but we managed to sneak into another theatre to watch it there. We also got to compare the 2D of that theatre to the 3D of ours. The difference is very subtle.
- Our whole family and Ebony went to Penang recently. Ian and Jan were there for Pesta, so we were there to support them. It was a fun vacation.
- Hannah, my dad, and I saw a dude doing a snake show by the pool. He kissed a cobra and a king cobra. It was pretty awesome.
- We had lunch at the Hard Rock cafe. It was pretty dang cool. Hannah told me to put my new sunglasses on this statue of Michael Jackson. It worked pretty well until they fell off and now the lenses are a little dinged up.
- I got some new sunglasses and the new Netherlands Jersey from the night market. It's missing some details, but it's still pretty cool. Altogether they cost me RM50.
- I watched the England - USA match with some England fans in the hotel. The fans were more entertaining than the match was.
- I got to take a warm bath.
- I had to drive back from Penang to Ipoh.
- Susanna wet herself in Ipoh and there was nobody home except for Ebony, Hannah, and me, so we had to clean her up.
- A few weeks before this I drove Audrey, Hannah, and my dad to FRIM to see Mama and Susanna, who were on a picnic.
- Along the way, a lorry smashed into the back of the car in a roundabout. He drove off before we could get his number.
- I noticed that the road to FRIM was at the intersection with a huge amount of cigarette butts that Joanna, Solo, and I had passed when we were lost during Davinia's surprise party.
- We saw a couple of really big fish in FRIM.
- The Tans visited for a day or something. Hannah and I picked Elselyn, Ruben, and Stefanie up from the LCCT. Jan might have been there, too. I have driven to the LCCT very many times.
- There are many kittens outside of where I have my Bahasa Kebangsaan classes. They are cute and don't mind getting close to people but they still won't let anyone touch them. I'm working on gaining their trust by feeding them chicken. They won't eat fish.
- I'm playing a lot more RuneScape now. I have a lot more in-game money than before because I met a dude who is really good a predicting the market. Lately we're riding a trend caused by a game change that will give us a 50% return on investment. Considering the usual ROI is around 15%, this is looking very good.
- Hannah let me sleep over in her room because she was scared of the dark or something. It was very cozy and comfortable but she told me a secret (which I already knew, and teased her about) and made me promise that I would do all sorts of stuff for her if I told anyone. So now I've gained nothing, but she can threaten me with all sorts of nonsense if she thinks I'm teasing her too much or whatever.
- I'm following the World Cup. I find that football in and of itself is pretty boring, but when you've got national pride and stuff added to the mix, it can get quite exciting. The Netherlands has done really well so far.
- I lost a whole lotta money gambling. My float's been reduced by RM250 back to what it was a few months ago. It used to be a whole lot more, but that didn't last for long.
- That is about it, I think.

Break's Over but I'm Still Doing Nothing

Anyway, aside from the party, here is what else happened recently:

Ian, Jan and I got confirmed, so now we can join the rest of the church during Holy Communion. Also, no more baptism lessons, so yay. Also also, after we were confirmed we got to eat a celebration dinner with our family at Chili's. I managed to finish my fish and chips this time, too.

I went to watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid with Hannah the other day. It was pretty good. On thing that had Hannah and I confused was Chloë Grace Moretz. Her character isn't in the book, and in the movie she doesn't do anything important or say anything funny. It's almost as if they had her in the movie for her star power or whatever, but the movie has been in production for two years, so she can't have been known for her roles in Kick-Ass or (500) Days of Summer. It's just weird. Anyway, after the movie Hannah and I went to MPH and read a book about the making of the movie. After that I moved on to the second book in the series. Hannah and I had read the first one when Ian bought it as a present for Sarah. I only managed to get halfway through the second book before the store closed. Hannah wasn't even done with the one about the movie. I bugged her about being a faster reader for the rest of the night.

Also a while ago I drove my dad to pick up his Chinese visa. I also took him to Mid Valley after that to get him to a meeting. I drove around for forty-five minutes looking for a parking space. I was surprised by the amount of people who went to their cars just to drop off their bags. I did not know people did this. It seems cruel. Also, there was this lady who walked to her car, got in, drove forward a bit, then backwards a bit, then got out and left. That lady is a terrible person and one day she will suffer for her cruelty. Anyway, my dad's meeting finished before I could get a parking space, so that sucked. Just before we left he found out that he had another meeting in the same place right after that, though, so I got to drive off to Subway and have lunch anyway. After that I pulled over outside the mall and took a nap with the radio on. All the driving and waiting around was tiring, but it was worth it for that sandwich. Man, I love Subway. I love food in general, I think.

Hannah downloaded a semi-decent quality bootleg of Kick-Ass to watch. I'm still not really sure why she was so enthusiastic about that movie. After she was done she told me it was just okay. Huh.

I went to HELP to see about getting my certificate of completion, but they told me that since I was home schooled I had to do Bahasa Kebangsaan before I would be done with my Foundation in Science. Alessandra had the same problem, but she said we could appeal, so I'll be trying that. If appealing doesn't work, I'll either have to do it while I'm taking my degree and then have HELP give me an exemption, or I'll have to take the subject in HELP with a few extra courses so I'm not just wasting time. The next intake for the subject starts around next month, though, with registrations open at the end of this month, so I won't really be seeing my friends for long anyway if I choose that.

I finished the Evil Campaign in Battle for Middle Earth 2. Now I'm just trying to win an eight-player free-for-all skirmish. It is tough.

I think that's about it.